Sorry, Folks: Blake Griffin Will Be A Clipper For A Long, Long Time

Clippers power forward Blake Griffin is the most irrepressibly
watch-able player in the league, the story of the season, and the
apple of every fan's eye.

Admittedly, it's unusual for every NBA city in America to have
designs on a rookie, even if he is in the second year of his
contract. But such is the reputation of the Clippers: an NBA
backwater with a cretinous owner that could never, ever, persuade
a superstar like Griffin to willingly play there.

By the start of the 2013 season Blake Griffin needs to be in a
Dallas Mavericks uniform.

Mavs Prime Minister Mark Cuban needs to take this from the
sports-bar hypothetical to "The Decision" reality. That means
clear out all necessary salary cap space and go LeBron on BGriff
in the summer of '13. Jim Gray will be available to make the
announcement.

As ZIller puts it, Engel demonstrates "a remarkable level of
disengagement with the reality of NBA free agency, the rookie
scale and cap rules". More to the point, Ziller notes, it's
indicative of a trend: The idea that a perennially lousy team
with a troubled corporate structure doesn't have any business
employing a player like Griffin.

Certainly, you can not like to see anything good come Donald
Sterling's way, and the laws of karma dictate that he will one
day be starved out of the league. But Griffin on the
Clippers—like Kevin Durant going to the strip-mined Sonics—is the
best proof possible that the system works.

The Clippers were bad; through the draft, they got keepers like
Griffin, Eric Gordon, DeAndre Jordan, Al Farouq-Aminu, and Eric
Bledsoe. In free agency, they were able to land Baron Davis,
despite their awful reputation. Successfully rebuilt, the other
Los Angeles team is now arguably the most promising young team in
the league. They even have an outside shot at the playoffs.

It's unfortunate, and unlikely, that they have done so with
Sterling at the top. That doesn't mean, though, that we should
root for this nucleus to be dismantled and sold to the highest,
most accomplished bidder. If that happens, we're no better than
the Yankees.

Griffin could end up changing teams; to do so, he would have to
decline the Clippers' qualifying offer and spend a year in
contract limbo before cashing in on the unrestricted market. He
could make his intentions clear and force a trade. But all of
this is hypothetical, and pretty far down the road. For now,
let's at least give the Clippers a chance to screw it all up
first.